King Art
The Washington Post has an interesting commentary on Second Life and intellectual property ownership. they point out that Second Life is the only online virtual world that allows its users to own the IP of what they create. Not the objects, the IP. They give the example of a young lady who makes $60K a year by designing virtual dresses. She has thousands of designs which can be purchased for "Linden dollars" (online currency), that can converted into US currency. Legally, according to Second Life's Terms and Conditions, she sells the design or template for the dress, not the dress itself.
Most similar sites have draconian Ts&Cs, claiming that they own the rights to whatever their users create. Creative and entrepreneurial types are disincentivized to work in such a system.
One woman on Second Life makes $250,000 a year from buying and selling real estate.
The real point here is that the online world is fast becoming an expression of thought and design and those who are the movers and shakers in this new world order won't do business in worlds with restrictive legal covenants, any more than many of us are willing to live in a planned neighborhood where we need to apply to a committee to paint our house a certain color.
I can even generalize more--the coming wave of tech is not about things, but about design. Software v. Hardware, schemas v. data, content v. context. If you want to make your future in the new digital world, train yourself by learning how to write or draw. Artists are poised to take over what the engineers created.
Posted on December 26, 2006